The present invention relates generally to wireless networks, and more specifically to a spectrum access mechanism for Internet of things (IOT) applications.
The Internet has adopted many new technologies as it has evolved to meet the changing needs of industry and society. This flexibility has been a factor in its growth, and today's Internet spans the globe and brings voice, video, data, and information to billions of people. Converging fixed and wireless technologies help make the Internet a ubiquitous infrastructure, always accessible and always on, supporting a wide range of activities. An IOT refers to an overall infrastructure (hardware, software, and services) supporting the seamless integration of physical things (e.g., everyday objects) into information networks. These objects are active participants in business and information processes, exchanging data including their identities, their physical properties, and information ‘sensed’ about their environment.
Cognitive radio (CR) is one paradigm for wireless communication in which either a network or a wireless node changes its transmission or reception parameters to communicate efficiently while avoiding interference with other users of the network bands. This alteration of parameters is based on the active monitoring of several factors, such as radio frequency spectrum, user behavior, and network state.
Another paradigm for sharing network frequencies is spatial frequency reuse, which has led to the development of cellular technology by allowing a significant improvement in the economic use of frequencies. Spatial frequency reuse divides an area to be serviced into cells (radio zones). For easier manipulation these cells may be modeled as hexagons with base stations in the middle of the cells. Each cell receives a subset of the frequencies and two neighboring cells do not receive the same frequency in order to avoid mutual interference. When moving from one cell to another during a conversation, an automatic channel/frequency change (handover) occurs.